Shia Shiites
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mosul; bagdadi
quite LOT of history isis, al-q; syrian civil war isis metasticize, gain ground, grabbed mechanized column rolled into ramadi
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-november-25-2019/
james verini sp they will have to die now
jonah to whale b/c would not go to ninevah; appeal orig not relig but political: promiosed order, malawi? gov't seen as pro shi/iran?
did not at 1st make men grow beards etc, but later clamped down eg on cigs; 1st cell phone war; app with map that showed progress realtime; off the shelf drones dripped grenades in turret on humvee before freq jam
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AN 11 25
Founded in Nigeria in 2002 — the year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — Boko Haram has been a frequent source of violence in that country for 23 years. The far-right jihadist group, often compared to al-Qaeda, favors overthrowing Nigeria's democratic republic and replacing it with an Islamist dictatorship governed by strict fundamentalist Shariah law — specifically, a Sunni version. Boko Haram has a long history of violent attacks on both Christians and Muslims (including Shiites as well as fellow Sunnis they consider too liberal).
U.S. President Donald Trump is now threatening military action against Boko Haram, vowing to "protect Christians." And his messaging is specifically focused on Christianity, not Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Nigeria who fear Boko Haram.
In an article published on November 4, Salon's Heather Digby Parton examines the influence that far-right white fundamentalist evangelicals and "Christian nationalists" are having on Trump's Nigeria policy. And one of them is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
"Whatever the case, this appears to be based upon misinformation," Parton explains. "Nigeria is dealing with the Boko Haram extremist group, which does target Christians. But it also threatens Muslims who don't accept its radical form of Islam, as well as those who are sympathetic to the Nigerian government. Most experts and analysts reject the assertion that this is some kind of Christian genocide. Trump may have wanted to give a little something to his 'cherished Christians,' as he sometimes refers to his evangelical supporters, but Hegseth is a much more interesting case."
Parton continues, "This is, after all, a man who wrote a book called 'American Crusade,' which The Guardian described as 'depicting Islam as a natural, historic enemy of the west; presents distorted versions of Muslim doctrine in Great Replacement-style racist conspiracy theories; treats leftists and Muslims as bound together in their efforts to subvert the U.S.; and idolizes medieval crusaders."
Parton warns that evangelical Hegseth embraces an extreme form of far-right Christian fundamentalism. In this book, the former Fox News host calls for "followers of Christ to take up the sword in defense of their faith."
"Hegseth is also a member of an extreme far-right sect called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches that also believes in militant Christianity," Parton warns. "It's heavily influenced by reconstructionism, a theology that religion scholar Julie Ingersoll describes as believing 'it's the job of Christians to exercise dominion over the whole world.' In short, Hegseth is a serious Christian nationalist, and there could be nothing more satisfying for him than to muster a fighting force to wage war against Muslims in a foreign land in the name of Jesus Christ."
Parton continues, "It sounds medieval, and it is…. Whether they will follow through on this is anyone's guess. At some point, one might hope that a few of the Christians who are clamoring for the U.S. to go into Nigeria with 'guns-a-blazing' might spare a thought for their fellow followers of Christ who are being terrorized every single day right here in America at the hands of an oppressive government that is deporting them to face certain persecution."
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==
https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/kristian-coates-ulrichsen
sunni shia
shock of takeover of al maxra mosque?
modern saudi history (2nd hour?)
buying US arms one way to spend oil $ but did not have ppl to use it, lost, arab spring shock led to buildup and get saudi ppl to fight.
iran better at proxy eg hezbollah (and sort of houti in yemen) than saudis
uae also trying (// saudis) to professionalize army; grabbing territoroy in yemen, not really in coordination w/ SA, their interests may diverge?
overton chattam house
https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-june-24-2019/
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==
:{Saudi Arabia May Execute Teenager for His Protests — Including When He Was 10:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:
IN 2011, as Arab Spring protests swept across the Middle East, demonstrations also kicked off in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. Members of the kingdom’s repressed Shiite minority took to the streets, calling for equal rights and a fairer distribution of oil revenues. The protesters included a group of around 30 kids on bicycles. As a videoreleased last week by CNN shows, those children were led by a smiling 10-year-old in flip-flops named Murtaja Qureiris.
“The people demand human rights!” the young boy can be seen shouting through a megaphone.
Here’s the problem: Demanding human rights in Saudi Arabia lands you in prison. Even if you’re a kid.
Three years later, in September 2014, 13-year-old Murtaja was arrested while on his way to neighboring Bahrain with his family.
“At the time,” reports CNN, “he was considered by lawyers and activists to be the youngest known political prisoner in Saudi Arabia.
Over the past four years, say human rights groups, this teenager has been subjected to torture and intimidation, as well as a spell in solitary confinement. He has been denied access to a lawyer while interrogators try to get him to confess to the trumped-up charges against him. These include “participating in anti-government protests, attending the funeral of his brother Ali Qureiris who was killed in a protest in 2011, joining a ‘terrorist organization,’ throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station, and firing at security forces,” according to Amnesty International.
Last week, we learned that Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for 18-year-old Murtaja, who is being tried in an anti-terror court. CNN reports that the prosecutors want to “impose the harshest form of the death penalty, which may include crucifixion or dismemberment after execution.”
Got that? The unelected government of a close ally of the United States is planning on brutally executing an 18-year-old member of a minority group, for crimes allegedly committed when he was 10 years old.
Let me repeat: Ten. Years. Old.
We shouldn’t forget the person who is primarily responsible for this outrage: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS. Since his father installed him in power, the violent crushing of political dissent has escalated. According to the CIA, MBS ordered the horrific murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He is also behind the targeting of three Arab activists in Norway, Canada, and the United States.
Much has (rightly) been made of the crown prince’s shocking record on extrajudicial killings. But what of the growing number of judicially sanctioned killings inside of Saudi Arabia on his watch? The planned execution of Murtaja Qureiris may be the most horrendous act yet.
“There should be no doubt that the Saudi Arabian authorities are ready to go to any length to crack down on dissent against their own citizens, including by resorting to the death penalty for men who were merely boys at the time of their arrest,” says Lynn Maalouf, Middle East research director at Amnesty International.
The Gulf kingdom is one of the world’s top executioners and, according to Maalouf, Saudi authorities have “a chilling track record of using the death penalty as a weapon to crush political dissent and punish anti-government protesters — including children — from the country’s persecuted Shi’a minority.”
The majority of the country, and the ruling family, are from a strict school of Sunni Islam called Salafism. In April, 37 people were executed in a single day — the biggest mass execution in the kingdom since 2016 — and the vast majority of them were believed to be Shiites. Three of them, according to human rights group Reprieve, were “minors at the time of their alleged offences.” Such executions, as both Reprieve and Amnesty International have noted, are a brazen violation of international human rights law.
Another three Saudi Shiites — Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Abdullah al-Zaher — who were also below the age of 18 at the time of their alleged crimes, are still on death row and could be executed at anytime.
It isn’t just Shiites, either. MBS has also targeted Sunni clerics who have failed to fall into line. There have been reports that the belligerent and thin-skinned crown prince plans on executing three high-profile Saudi religious scholars — Salman al-Odah, Awad al-Qarni, and Ali al-Omari — all of whom have been held on multiple charges of “terrorism.” 62-year-old Odah is famous in the Arab world for his relatively progressive views on Islam and homosexuality and his 2007 denunciation of Osama bin Laden. His actual “crime”? Tweeting a prayer for reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and its Gulf rival, the Emirate of Qatar. (Full disclosure: I host two TV shows for Qatar-funded Al Jazeera English.)
Supporters of MBS often try and argue that these executions are the product of decisions made in court, not in the royal palace. This is a laughable defense. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. There is no independent judiciary. As CNN reports, “The death penalty can only be enforced by order of King Salman or his authorized representative. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is frequently characterized as the King’s deputy.”
Forget MBS the reformer; meet MBS the executioner. The fact that he has been embraced closely by everyone from Donald Trump to Emmanuel Macron to Theresa May should be a source of shame for those of us living in the West. To quote former Obama-era National Security Council spokesperson Tommy Vietor, MBS is “Kim Jong Un with oil money.”
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new
https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/saudi-arabia-beheaded-37-dissidents-last-month-and-u-s-media-called-them-terrorists/
Saudi Arabia executed 37 men on April 23, as it announced in a press release in its official gazette. The first line of the release read, “Saudi Arabia said it executed 37 citizens last Tuesday after they were convicted of terrorism.”
A cursory Google search would have shown that this assertion was completely false. But many in the U.S. press dutifully stenographed this claim into a headline:
- “37 Saudis Executed for Terrorism-Related Crimes”: Time (4/23/19)
- “Saudi Arabia Executes 37 in One Day for Terrorism”: New York Times (4/23/19)
- “Saudi Arabia Beheads 37 Prisoners for Terrorism Crimes”: PBS NewsHour (4/23/19)
In fact, by looking at court documents from the Saudi government, we know that of these 37 men, 11 of them wereaccused of being “Iranian spies,” and 22 were accused of participating in a demonstration during the Arab Spring. (These 33 belonged to the Shia minority; the others practiced Sunni Islam or could not be identified.)
Of the 22 men accused of protesting, six were juveniles at the time. Mujtaba Al Suweikat was on his way to study at Western Michigan University when the Saudi authorities arrested him and charged him with “inciting disloyalty to the king.”
Saeed Mohammed Al Skafi was 17 during the protests. One of the charges against him was “posting pictures of other detainees.” Most of the others were convicted of offenses like “chanting disloyal slogans about the king” and “using social media to incite demonstrations.”
Of the 11 convicted of being Iranian spies, they were also found guilty of farcical offenses such as “condemning the bloodshed” (in February 2012, Saudi forces in the Shia-majority Saudi governorate of Qatif had sprayed protesters with bullets) and saving images and documents of the protests (which are also available on YouTube) on their hard drives.
A
mong the other four people executed, Khaled Al Tuwairji, a Sunni, was accused of killing Maj. Gen. Nasser Othman. However, all three outlets repeated that he was a “Sunni extremist,” for which we have no other evidence. Al Tuwairji was tortured into a confession (Erem News, 4/23/19). But all three outlets justified his execution and subsequent crucifixion by insisting that he was a convicted Sunni militant.
Another of the Sunnis executed, Khaled Al Farraj, was convicted on the vague charge of being affiliated with an outlawed terrorist organization. But even according to Saudi state media, he didn’t engage in any acts of terrorism. He is the only one of the 37 people executed who seems to have been charged with a terrorism-related offense.
PBS NewsHour (4/23/19)
Having false information in the headlines is extremely prejudicial. Studies have repeatedly shown that a large portion of readers do not read past the headlines — and those that do end up remembering the headline the most.
In its first version of the article, which has changed since then, the New York Times wrote of Saudi Arabia, “It listed the 37 men by name but provided little information about what specific crimes had been committed by whom or when.” Instead of relying on a Saudi press release, the Times could have tried a cursory web search — or even searched its own archives. In an article by the Times editorial board (8/3/17) nearly two years ago, it had a short biography of Mujtaba Al Suweikat, the “disloyal” Western Michigan student, and the specific crimes he had been charged with.
Though the Times article was edited after publication to include some information that didn’t come from the Saudi press release — citing a Human Rights Watch official’s concern that many of the cases “raised serious rights concerns,” for example — the revised article was still misleading. For example, in paragraph three, it stated, “Some men had been involved in bomb attacks on security headquarters that had killed officers, the [state news] agency said.” As far as we know, none of the 37 executed men had been involved in any bomb attacks, but the Times never challenged this Saudi government assertion.
Furthermore, the Times said that 14 of those killed had been arrested in relation to “sometimes violent protests.” It failed to mention that that violence came from the Saudi government.This video, from July 2012, clearly shows Saudi police
. In searching through the news archives, articles have repeatedly mentioned protesters being shot by the Saudi police. There appear to be no reports (outside Saudi propaganda statements) of violence emanating from the protesters.
The articles in the Times, Time magazine and the NewsHour all mentioned Saudi-Iranian relations, thereby amplifying longstanding Saudi propaganda that accuses Shia of being naturally loyal to Iran, which is blamed for “stoking unrest” to justify brutal crackdowns of the religious minority.
All three outlets also added gratuitous details about the attack in Sri Lanka and/or other ISIS-related attacks — attacks that there’s no suggestion any of the defendants were connected to. In fact, most of these defendants were arrested before ISIS existed. And a majority of those killed, being Shiites, would be viewed by ISIS as heretics. To bring up these attacks seems like a distraction from the topic of the stories, which is the Saudi government beheading people who have for the most part been accused mainly of being dissidents.
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2x down on MBS 4/19?
but then
https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/jared-kushner-talks-of-accountability-for-crown-prince-as-saudis-offer-egregious-display-of-brutality-with-mass-beheadings/
Just as Jared Kushner answered questions about the close ties between the White House and Saudi Arabia in New York on Tuesday, the Middle Eastern kingdom beheaded 37 people in its largest mass execution in at last three years.
The executions, of mostly Shiite men accused of terrorism related crimes, were part of what Washington’s Gulf Institute director Ali Al-Ahmed called “the largest mass execution of Shiites in the kingdom’s history.”
Al-Ahmed identified 34 of the 37 victims as Shiite.
According to reports, Saudi Arabian security services nailed one of the heads to a poll as a warning and one victim was crucified after his execution.
Saudi Arabia displays severed head on pole as a warning after beheading 37 Saudi citizens, most of them minority Shiites, in a mass execution across the country for alleged terrorism-related crimes. Via @AP https://t.co/J3yxex0VjA
— BrinleyBruton (@BrinleyBruton) April 23, 2019
The killings were announced by Saudi state media Tuesday morning, Eastern time, right before Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a senior advisor to the president, took the stage at the Time 100 Summit event honoring the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Saudi Arabia confirms beheading 37 citizens, most of them minority Shiites, in a mass execution for alleged terrorism-related crimes. One body and its severed head was tied to a pole as a public warning. https://t.co/ydFt8M3r0C
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) April 23, 2019
During an interview at the event with Time White House correspondent Brian Bennett, Kushner fielded questions on a number of foreign policy questions, including the Israel/Palestine conflict and the Trump administration’s closeness to Russia.
Kushner was also asked a series of questions on Saudi Arabia and the relationship between the U.S. and the kingdom, especially in light of the murder of Jamal Kashoggi in October 2018 and the war on Yemen.
Kushner doesn’t dispute U.S. intelligence services’ conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi https://t.co/iVRb7y2A98 pic.twitter.com/NjXhE77NlJ
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 23, 2019
In his replies, Kushner downplayed the significance of the murder, pled ignorance on the details of the crime, and admitted that he offered Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman guidance as the world demanded accountability.
Kushner seems to acknowledge he advised Saudi Crown Prince MBS after #Khashoggi‘s murder.
“The advice I gave was be as transparent as possible and that obviously we have to make sure there is accountability for what happened,” Kushner says at #TIME100 summit
— Jennifer Hansler (@jmhansler) April 23, 2019
“Obviously, we have to make sure there’s accountability for what happened,” saidKushner, before pivoting to a series of remarks critical of Iran, the Palestinians, and the Yemeni Houthis.
In response to the beheadings, Maya Foa, director of the U.K.-based human rights groups Reprieve, put the “egregious display of brutality” squarely at the feet of MbS and the Kingdom’s western allies which have shielded it from exactly the accountability Kushner says he supports.
“That the Saudi regime believes it has impunity to carry out such patently illegal executions, without notice,” Foa said, “should shock its international partners into action.”
Reprieve Director @mayafoa: “This is another egregious display of brutality by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. That the Saudi regime believes it has impunity to carry out such patently illegal executions, without notice, should shock its international partners into action.”
— Reprieve (@Reprieve) April 23, 2019
In March 2018, The Intercept reported that Bin Salman bragged that he had Kushner “in his pocket.”
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}:
https://bracingviews.com/2015/01/23/fewer-american-snipers-more-american-workers-and-builders/
Astore
Former Army Ranger Rory Fanning has a thoughtful article at TomDispatch.com on why young men should not join the Army to fight the war on terror in distant lands.
Here’s an excerpt:
Believe me, it [the Afghan War] was ugly. We were often enough targeting innocent people based on bad intelligence and in some cases even seizing Afghans who had actually pledged allegiance to the U.S. mission… I know now that if our country’s leadership had truly had peace on its mind, it could have all been over in Afghanistan in early 2002.
If you are shipped off to Iraq for our latest war there, remember that the Sunni population you will be targeting is reacting to a U.S.-backed Shia regime in Baghdad that’s done them dirty for years. ISIS exists to a significant degree because the largely secular members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party were labeled the enemy as they tried to surrender after the U.S. invasion of 2003 … Given the reign of terror that followed, it’s hardly surprising to find former Baathist army officers in key positions in ISIS and the Sunnis choosing that grim outfit as the lesser of the two evils in its world. Again, the enemy you are being shipped off to fight is, at least in part, a product of your chain-of-command’s meddling in a sovereign country. And remember that, whatever its grim acts, this enemy presents no existential threat to American security, at least so says Vice President Joe Biden. Let that sink in for a while and then ask yourself whether you really can take your marching orders seriously.
Fanning makes persuasive points here: How the U.S. military bungled its wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan; how often Iraqi and Afghan innocents were killed due to bad intelligence and the usual deadly mistakes associated with war; how the wars fed, and continue to feed, a cycle of violence that is perpetuated by new U.S. troop deployments and weapons sales (with respect to weapons sales, see this excellent article by Peter Van Buren, which details how the U.S. is hawking M1 Abrams main battle tanks to the Iraqis).
...
==
:{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia%E2%80%93Sunni_relations
}:
==
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/sunni---shia-divide-explained/article19337058/
2014/17
no lnx/ map
All Muslims believe that there is no god but Allah, and that Mohammed was his last prophet. They believe the Koran, revealed to Mohammed, is the word of God. Beyond that there are relatively minor differences in the way each branch worships.Yet Sunnis (about 80 per cent of Muslims) and Shiites (15- 20 per cent) have often waged deadly sectarian war against each other;the latest such battle is developing now in Iraq.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SHIA AND SUNNI?
The important difference is a doctrinal one: Shiites believe that upon the death of Mohammed in 632, the leadership of the faith he founded passed to his descendants starting with Ali, his son-in-law. This line of leaders, or imams, is divinely chosen, Shiites believe. Sunnis believe that leadership of the faith passed first to the Prophet’s closest companions, then to a line of non-hereditary caliphs selected by the so-called “rightly guided” elite of the faith.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Each branch views the other as followers of false leaders, making them apostates -- betrayers of Islam. Extremists on both sides believe the other must be eradicated in order to cleanse the faith. Since Sunnis form the majority, it has more often been extremists among them who launched such campaigns, and who persecuted the Shiite population.
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE CONSEQUENCES?
From the beginning of their line, Shia imams were put down by the Sunni leadership, and all of Shia’s first 11 leaders died violently, often by assassination. Most Shiites believe that their 12th Imam went into hiding at the age of 5 (in 874), and still is alive but has been in occultation. Known as the Mahdi, this Hidden Imam will return one day to cleanse the world of evil. Through centuries of persecution, Shiism revolved around tragedies that befell them and their leaders. In contrast, Sunnis view the Shia practice of visiting shrines and venerating saints as sacrilegious.
[Thousands of Shiite pilgrims pray near the holy shrine of Imam Hussein, to mark the anniversary of the birth of Shiite Imam Al-Mehdi al-Muntadhar, in Karbala. (AP Photo/Alaa Al-Marjani)
WHY IS IRAQ SO IMPORTANT TO THEM?
It is in Iraq that Shiism’s major defeats took place in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries and, hence, their greatest shrines are here. For that reason they also are the most important declared targets of the Sunni jihadists now making their way across Iraq.
Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law and the first Shia Imam, was attacked and killed while at prayer and is buried in Najaf. His son Hussein, the Third Imam, was killed in the Battle of Karbala and is buried there.
(To this day, many Shiites carry a small clay tablet made from the soil of Karbala on which Hussein’s blood was shed. They put the tablet on the ground wherever they pray and press their foreheads to it. Sunnis have no such practices in their worship.)
Samarra is the site of another great Shia shrine, the al-Askari Mosque, where Shiism’s last two visible imams are buried. Since the population around the mosque now is mostly Sunni, Samarra has become a heavily contested battleground in the current conflict.
WHICH BRANCH RULES IRAQ?
While Shia Muslims have often been the majority of the population in what is now Iraq, the country’s rulers have mostly been Sunnis. The 500-year Abbasid Caliphate, during what became known as the Golden Age of Islam, had its capital in Baghdad, while the Ottoman Empire, headquartered in Istanbul, continued to exert Sunni control over the area.Even the British, when they took responsibility for Iraq in the wake of the First World War, installed a Sunni King, and attendant bureaucracy.
And Saddam Hussein, although he was a completely secular dictator, was born a Sunni, and treated the Shiites brutally.
It was only after his demise and the first democratic elections that Shiites came to rule the country. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki leads a Shia party and has formed a succession of Shia-dominated coalition governments.However, his continued refusal to incorporate Sunnis into the exercise of power is largely blamed for the current Sunni unrest.
WHAT ABOUT SYRIA?
The Assads, who have ruled Syria for more than 40 years, are Alawites, an even more obscure branch of Islam that splintered from the Shiites. These Muslims practise mysticism, among other things, and are considered by Sunnis to be even greater apostates than mainstream Shiites.
TheAssad regime has been challenged by Syria’s majority Sunnis, with support from foreign jihadists such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. In turn, theregime has been supported by Shia Iran and by Lebanon’s militant Shia movement, Hezbollah.
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https://www.alternet.org/cia-coup-set-stage-conflict-iran
medea b:
Before the theocratic government of today's Iran, there was the brutal Shah. Before the Shah, the CIA overthrew a pro-Western government that had been democratically elected. Mohammad Mossadegh was the prime minister and his US-backed downfall in 1953 was the spark that set in motion the conflict with Iran today. In this interview, Medea Benjamin sheds light on this seminal incident with Iran. She also explores the nation's history and politics.
Mark Karlin: How did the 1953 coup that re-installed the Shah relate to keeping the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company from being nationalized?
Medea Benjamin: In 1934, the Shah had signed a contract with the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company giving it exclusive rights over the nation's oil for the next 60 years. The public ire over the giveaway of the nation's resources culminated in 1951 with the election of Mohammad Mossadegh as prime minister. Mossadegh introduced a bill to nationalize the oil, a bill that was unanimously approved by Parliament. The British then convinced the US government that nationalization was unacceptable, leading to a CIA coup that reinstated the Shah and ensured that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later renamed BP) could continue to exploit Iran's resources.
What was the impact of the coup?
The CIA coup that overthrew Iran's democratically elected government, while deemed successful at the time, has had a tragic impact on the Iranian people and US-Iranian relations. The Shah was put back in charge with even more dictatorial powers. He built a terrifying internal security force called SAVAK that "disappeared," tortured and killed political dissidents. All the secular parties and organizations that had opposed the Shah were dismantled and banned. The only important institution that maintained some independence and could still speak with moral authority to the concerns of the public was the Shi'ite clergy, setting the stage for the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And thanks to the constant US meddling in Iran's internal affairs, the 1979 Revolution was not only anti-Shah, but anti-American.
Since then, the US policy has been one of trying to economically strangle the government through a variety of sanctions and trying to foment a counter-revolution. It was only during the Obama administration that there was some rapprochement with the signing of the Iran nuclear deal, but this deal was opposed by Donald Trump.
Can you briefly explain the conflict between Sunni Arab Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Persian Iran?
The religious division between Sunni and Shia dates back to Islam's founding in the 7th century, but Sunni and Shia have coexisted without significant conflict for much of the history of the Middle East. It was only after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran that the rivalry exploded. The new Iranian leaders challenged the legitimacy of the Saudi royal family, claiming that Islam was incompatible with hereditary monarchies.The Saudi rulers' response was to denounce Iran's revolution as a power play by heretical Shi'ites. In essence, the Saudi-Iran rivalry is less about religion than it is about power and politics.
:{
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/world/middleeast/q-and-a-how-do-sunni-and-shia-islam-differ.html
Saudi Arabia’s execution of the Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr could escalate tensions in the Muslim world even further. In the Shiite theocracy Iran, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia, which is ruled by a Sunni monarchy, would face “divine vengeance” for the killing of the outspoken cleric, which was part of a mass execution of 47 men. Sheikh Nimr had advocated for greater political rights for Shiites in Saudi Arabia and surrounding countries. Saudi Arabia had accused him of inciting violence against the state.
Here is a primer on the basic differences between Sunni and Shia Islam.
What caused the split?
A schism emerged after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, and disputes arose over who should shepherd the new and rapidly growing faith.
Some believed that a new leader should be chosen by consensus; others thought that only the prophet’s descendants should become caliph. The title passed to a trusted aide, Abu Bakr, though some thought it should have gone to Ali, the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law. Ali eventually did become caliph after Abu Bakr’s two successors were assassinated.
Photo
Shiite pilgrims at the shrine to Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq, in December. Each year millions visit the city to mark Arbaeen, the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam's most revered figures. Credit European Pressphoto Agency
After Ali also was assassinated, with a poison-laced sword at the mosque in Kufa, in what is now Iraq, his sons Hasan and then Hussein claimed the title. But Hussein and many of his relatives were massacred in Karbala, Iraq, in 680. His martyrdom became a central tenet to those who believed that Ali should have succeeded the prophet. (It is mourned every year during the month of Muharram.) The followers became known as Shiites, a contraction of the phrase Shiat Ali, or followers of Ali.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverag
Saudi Arabia Cuts Ties With Iran Amid Fallout From Cleric’s Execution JAN. 3, 2016
Questions Rebels Use to Tell Sunni From Shiite JUNE 24,2014
REFRESHER COURSE
Sunni Muslims - Shiite Muslims - Silvestre Reyes - United States Congress DEC. 17, 2006
Continue reading the main story
The Sunnis, however, regard Ali as well as the three caliphs before him as rightly guided and themselves as the true adherents to the Sunnah, or the prophet’s tradition. Sunni rulers embarked on sweeping conquests that extended the caliphate into North Africa and Europe. The last caliphate ended with the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
How do their beliefs differ?
The Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam encompass a wide spectrum of doctrine, opinion and schools of thought. The branches are in agreement on many aspects of Islam, but there are considerable disagreements within each. Both branches include worshipers who run the gamut from secular to fundamentalist. Shiites consider Ali and the leaders who came after him as imams. Most believe in a line of 12 imams, the last of whom, a boy, is believed to have vanished in the ninth century in Iraq after his father was murdered. Shiites known as Twelvers anticipate his return as the Mahdi, or Messiah. Because of the different paths the two sects took, Sunnis emphasize God’s power in the material world, sometimes including the public and political realm, while Shiites value in martyrdom and sacrifice.
Which sect is larger, and where is each concentrated?
More than 85 percent of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are Sunni. They live across the Arab world, as well as in countries like Turkey, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. Iran, Iraq and Bahrain are largely Shiite. The Saudi royal family, which practices an austere and conservative strand of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, controls Islam’s holiest shrines, Mecca and Medina. Karbala, Kufa and Najaf in Iraq are revered shrines for the Shiites.
Saudi Arabia and Iran, the dominant Sunni and Shiite powers in the Middle East, often take opposing sides in regional conflicts. In Yemen, Shiite rebels from the north, the Houthis, overthrew a Sunni-dominated government, leading to an invasion by a Saudi-led coalition. In Syria, which has a Sunni majority, the Alawite Shiite sect of President Bashar al-Assad, which has long dominated the government, clings to power amid a bloody civil war. And in Iraq, bitter resentments between the Shiite-led government and Sunni communities have contributed to victories by the Islamic State.
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There are around 1.6 billion muslims in the world of which 85–90% are Sunni and 10–15% are Shia.
Predominantly Sunni countries include Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Syria, Turkey, Nigeria, Libya, Tunisia, Sudan. Predominantly Shia countries include Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan. This is how the population is distributed:
Indonesia: 99% Sunni; 0.5% Shia
Saudi Arabia: 88% Sunni; 12% Shia
Egypt: 99% Sunni; >1% Shia
Pakistan: 80–90% Sunni; 10–20% Shia
Bangladesh: 94% Sunni; 1% Shia
Syria: 74% Sunni; 13% Shia
Turkey: 73% Sunni; 20% Shia
Nigeria: 88% Sunni; 12% Shia (% within the muslim population)
Libya: 99% Sunni; >1% Shia
Tunisia: 98% Sunni; 2% Shia
Algeria: 97% Sunni; >2% Shia
Sudan: 98.5% Sunni; 1.5% Shia
Iran: 90–95% Shia; 5–10% Sunni
Iraq: 60–65% Shia; 32–37% Sunni
Bahrain: 70–75% Shia; 25–30% Sunni
Azerbaijan: 85% Shia; 15% Sunni
Lebanon: 36 Shia; 22% Sunni (compared to the whole population)
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The conflict between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias sustains ISIS - 18 things ...
https://www.vox.com/cards/things-about-isis-you-need-to.../sunni-shia-conflict-ISIS
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ISIS has been a catastrophe for Sunnis in Iraq and Syria | The ...
www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2016/11/23/isis-a-catastrophe-for-sunnis/
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Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
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conflict between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias sustains ISIS
In the most basic theological terms, the Sunni-Shia split in Islamoriginated with a controversy over who would take power after the Prophet Mohammed's death. Today, of course, Iraq's sectarian problems aren't about relitigating seventh-century disputes; they're about modern political power and grievances. But those do tend to fall along Sunni-Shia lines.
A majority of Iraqi Arabs are Shias, but Sunnis ran the show when Saddam Hussein, himself Sunni, ruled Iraq. Saddam spread a false belief, still surprisingly persistent in the country today, that Sunnis were the real majority in Iraq. Thus, Sunnis felt, and still feel, entitled to larger shares of political power than might perhaps be warranted by their size.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi civil war sparked after the 2003 US-led invasion had a brutally sectarian cast to it, and the pseudo-democracy that emerged afterward empowered the Shia majority (with some heavy-handed help from Washington) at the expense of the Sunni minority. Today the two groups don't trust one another and so far have competed in what they see as a zero-sum game for control over Iraqi political institutions. In 2013, Shias used control over the police force to arbitrarily detain Sunni protestors demanding more representation in government.
So long as Shias control the government, and Sunnis don't feel that they're fairly represented, ISIS has an audience for its radical Sunni message. That's an important part of how the group built up support in Iraq's heavily Sunni northwest.
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How the Shia-Sunni split in 632AD led to Iran and Saudi Arabia's ...
https://qz.com/.../how-the-shia-sunni-split-in-632ad-led-to-iran-and-saudi-arabias-pow...
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Missing: shock takeover maxra mosque
What is the Shia-Sunni divide? - The Conversation
theconversation.com/what-is-the-shia-sunni-divide-78216
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Missing: shock takeover maxra
Shia–Sunni relations - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia–Sunni_relations
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